


When Will I See You Again?

by anneapocalypse



Series: Cesura [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, Gap Filler, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 08:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10737813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: “I’m not going.”Vanessa knew this was coming. She really did. It doesn’t make it easier.“You’re going,” she says softly. “This is not up for discussion, Carolina.”





	When Will I See You Again?

**Author's Note:**

> Another "Let's write this before it gets jossed next week!" fic. I can't help thinking there might have been more to the Reds and Blues leaving Chorus than just "We need a break." Assuming Wash and Carolina left with them, here's how I imagine this particular departure might have gone.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

“I’m not going.”

Vanessa knew this was coming. She really did. It doesn’t make it easier.

“You’re going,” she says softly. “This is not up for discussion, Carolina.”

“Like hell,” Carolina says, her jaw tightening in that way it does. She’s got her helmet held against one side, but her hip’s not cocked either in playfulness or in swagger. Feet spaced shoulder-width, she’s not at attention, not at parade rest—she’s here not to take orders, but prepared for a fight. “I’m not leaving, Vanessa. I didn’t agree to this.”

“I know,” Kimball says simply.

They stare one another down for a solid minute. Kimball’s learned the art of staring Carolina down, a challenge even standing a good few inches taller than her and both of them in full armor. Even with the practiced authority of command, even with her newly-elected position of leadership over all of Chorus.

Even now, it’s hard. Hard enough she’s dreaded this moment almost more than the leaving. The moment when Carolina says no.

As Kimball knew she would.

Carolina isn’t going to blink first. Figuratively speaking. She never does. Dark lashes over bright green eyes, freshly colored hair falling not quite in her eyes, and Vanessa wants to brush her bangs back with her fingertips, wants to pull Carolina close and kiss her and kiss her and never let go. The air smells like rain and tar and heat ripples up from under the Pelican. Grif is hollering from the cockpit, the rest of Chorus’s heroes packed in the bay pulling down their crash bars and there’s an empty copilot seat up front and Carolina is standing before her, an immovable object.

But Vanessa Kimball has learned, by now, how to be an unstoppable force.

 

“Forty-eight hours,” Kimball says simply.

They stare each other down. Carolina's hair flutters in the breeze. She does not move.

“The First Fleet mobilized and entered slipspace forty-eight hours ago. That’s what we know.”

“That’s _all_ we know.”

“You heard the news broadcast.” They all did—with the jammer down, UNSC pubCOM poured freely down to Chorus for the first time in over a decade. _SHOCKING NEW EVIDENCE LINKS COLONY TO NOW-DEFUNCT MILITARY PROGRAM. ISOLATED PLANET BELIEVED TO BE IN COLLUSION WITH ROGUE OPERATIVES..._

“You’ll be a war criminal,” Kimball says, “if they find you here.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Carolina holds her stance. Holds her ground. “You’ll be Insurrectionists. You know what they’ll do to you. You need me here.”

Swallow. Stand firm. Do not let her voice break. Not now.

“I need you to go.”

Carolina blinks.

“I need you to go,” Kimball says again. Slowly. Chest tight. “Not just to protect you, but to protect my planet. My people.” Breathe. “If we can show them we’re not connected to—whatever they think you are, we might have a chance.” Breathe. “You and Wash might be able to afford another war. My people cannot.”

It’s a strange thing, watching an ex-Freelancer’s resolve break. Watching understanding settle over those impassive features—the slight widening of her eyes, the startled sag of her mouth. Understanding, and a flash of hurt.

“You’re saying you’re not safer if I stay,” Carolina says, and her voice has gone tight, and the blur at the edges of Kimball’s vision is just the heat distortion from the bird, and she is doing the right thing, _she is doing the right thing_ , she has to do this, she has to be strong. For one more day, for one more week, for one more month, for one more year. But not for one more war.

 _W_ _hat do you fight for? For a better tomorrow._ A tomorrow deferred again and again and again and maybe it will never come, for her, but she is Vanessa Kimball, former General of the New Republic and President of the united Chorus and she is not afforded the privilege to break. Not today, and not tomorrow either.

“I'm not,” she says. Corrects. “We’re not.”

 

Words aren’t Carolina’s language. It’s taken Vanessa a long time to understand this. Words are a necessary but clumsy approximation for action—for fists and bullets, for movement and for touch. Carolina does not say. She _does_.

The kiss is angry. Forceful enough nearly to bruise Vanessa’s mouth, even as it softens into something desperate, needy, clinging but not pleading, because Carolina does not beg, even without words. Even like this. She cups Vanessa’s jaw with one gloved hand, almost tender beneath the rough surface of the palm grip and the thin and almost indiscernible layer of hydrostatic gel that makes her grip and her strike so much more forceful and deadly. Her other hand presses into the space at Vanessa’s lower back where the gap in the plate is, pressing her close with more of that force, their breastplates a hard barrier between them. She’s dropped her helmet somewhere.

The kiss is angry. The anger is not at Vanessa. It’s taken her a long time to understand that, too. It’s something Carolina carries with her, perpetually, in the coiled springs of her every reflex, in the compact power of her body, even out of armor, the very thought of which makes longing sunburst in Vanessa’s chest, bright and stark. She doesn’t pull away, lets the kiss linger and grow soft between them until they both break at once, breathless.

 

The back hatch closes, the helmet gaze of gold on aqua lingering in the narrow window on lift-off. Grif can get them through atmo. Carolina’s copilot skills will give them a smoother landing, when they reach their destination, written in coordinates Kimball wipes from her helmet logs as the black bird rises into the blue-gray sky, growing smaller. She watches until it vanishes in the haze, and maybe something in her does break then, quietly. Even as she releases a shaky breath, stands tall. Even as she turns to go back to her people, to be the person they need her to be. Today, tomorrow. Until it’s finished.

**Author's Note:**

> [In case you are in need of a happy ending.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12356175)


End file.
